


surrender

by khayr



Category: RWBY, rwbyquest
Genre: F/M, RWBYQuest - Freeform, This was supposed to be a drabble, badend royals, im glynarch trash sorry not sorry lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5396351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khayr/pseuds/khayr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monarch’s voice was a low rumble in her ear when he leaned in to whisper to her.</p>
<p>“Long live the Queen.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	surrender

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't ready rwbyquest yet, you should! (therwbyquest.tumblr.com) Badend Royals is any au in which any party members ally with Monarch- I stumbled across some great art on tumblr user rontra's blog and was summarily inspired to continue to be trash. P: 
> 
> and also have a playlist too bc why not; http://8tracks.com/khayr/red-teeth-white-eyes

“You don’t really want to die, now, do you?”  
  
She let out a bark of laughter. It sounded hollow, which was just about the way she was feeling right now. After sizing each other up in the hallway Monarch had allowed her to bring him down to the cafeteria where they could fight unhindered, trailing lazily behind her like a cat whose prey had already been cornered. Maybe it was his striking resemblance to Ozpin or maybe it was her failing will to live but Glynda had allowed him to stretch this as long as he wanted if it meant the rest of the group could get away.   
  
But oh, was she primed for a fight.  
  
“Why wouldn’t I? Look at this mess.” She ran her fingers through her hair, hands steady even now. Acceptance. It would all be over soon. The horns that had curved from her skull minutes earlier had disappeared of their own volition. “What did I do to stop it? The fault is just as much mine as it was his.”  
  
Monarch snapped, his fist connecting with the wall and cracking the plaster on impact. She didn’t flinch as he had assumed she would but merely stared at his display of displeasure. Why was he so invested in this woman? By all accounts he should hate her for this weakness. He did hate her. He _loathed_ her. Even so, there was a nagging ache in his chest at the thought of her death and it only fueled his fury. She deserved so much better.  
  
“How can you say that?” His lip curled up into a snarl, fangs bared. He could feel fresh liquid streaming down his face, but didn’t care to discern if it was tears or simply blood. It didn’t make a difference. “You’d throw away your life for nothing?”   
  
A blast of magic caught him across the chest, knocking the wind from him in surprise. It didn’t matter if she put up a fight now... he knew she hadn’t intended to walk out of here alive from the start. Anger roiled in him and yet he did not want to do this. As he pulled himself back to his feet she was already poised and ready for whatever he was going to throw her way.  
  
Monarch lashed back at her blindly, smashing the table to her left with the force of his attack. Glynda seemed surprised that he had missed his target, but spent no time closing the distance between them. Before he had squared his stance and regained his balance she rammed her shoulder into him, sending him straight back into the door. It shattered under him, and the pain only pushed him harder. Glass crunched underfoot. Fresh blood flowed. His fucking face was nothing but agony while he clawed pieces of the window out of his skin.  
  
“This wasn’t even your fault,” he hissed, his phantom hand snapping out to grab her arm before she could launch another attack on him. He wasn’t _finished_. “Do you even know that? The whole fucking thing was doomed from the start. You couldn’t have known.”  
  
Whatever he was saying seemed to be working, at least. Glynda had frozen in place, watching him. It was probably nothing more than his likeness to Ozpin that kept her from making another move, but he’d take it. He couldn’t read whatever emotion was on her face. He couldn’t understand it. She looked like she’d been slapped and stunned into silence.  
  
He needed to keep talking.  
  
“I could have stopped it,” she spoke, voice whisper quiet. Her arms went limp in defeat, and as Monarch released his hold on her her shoulders slumped too. “But I didn’t.”  
  
“You can’t blame yourself for someone else’s mistakes.” He couldn’t figure out why the words were coming from his mouth, but somehow he felt he needed to fix this. To heal her hurt if he could. She let out another hollow laugh followed by a choked sob.   
  
“Even if I didn’t, what good would it do?”  
  
“You didn’t deserve this. You still don’t.”  
  
Silence stretched between them. It was weighted, tense… uncomfortable. Monarch fidgeted restlessly. He was supposed to remove her from the equation, and he still didn’t want to. The strength of the bond his origin form must have had with her was clouding his judgement. It frustrated him. Angered him. She didn’t even want to live! By all accounts he should have been smearing her blood across the walls by now.  
  
Glynda had taken to staring blankly out the window, perhaps imagining stars where the ink black dome had settled over Beacon. She was quiet, maybe contemplating something he had said, but her eyes were distant. Numb. Even if his words had soothed some of her pain, she was still ready for it to be over.   
  
“Are you going to end this now?” She sounded so, so tired.  
  
His nose crinkled into a half snarl.   
  
“If you could fix it, would you try to?” His fingers flexed and unflexed anxiously. Her eyes flickered to his, uncertainty plain on her face. Slowly, carefully so as to not startle her he stepped closer, posture loose. She tensed visibly, but made no move to attack.  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Glynda choked back another soft sob, and now that Monarch was this close he could see she was crying. Maybe he was crying too. Something wet was sticking to his face.   
  
“You can still correct this. _We_ can correct this.” The words came out of his mouth of their own volition, slipping through his teeth like birds too quick to catch. What was he even saying? Where was this coming from? He could feel the ache in his chest but he couldn’t figure out why he had such an attachment to this woman. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.  
  
“Monarch.”  
  
The idea had planted itself so firmly now, it almost amazed him that he hadn’t thought of it before this. They could mop up all of Ozpin’s mistakes together, fix what he had failed to do. Between the two of them nothing could hope to stand and come out alive.  
  
“Remove the loose entities from this world,” he continued lazily, staring down at her, “Take out the trash. Everything that he fucked up, erased. Reset. Corrected.”   
  
Glynda let out a shaky sigh, holding her face in her hands. It felt like too much at once, but was there a better alternative? Fight and die a painful death, or take the chance for a small sliver of redemption in wiping the pieces from the board. When she put it like that it was hard to justify throwing her life away with the prospect of atoning for what she had failed to do in the first place.  
  
Somehow, she felt as though Ozpin would have wanted to try to fix everything instead of just giving up.  
  
“And when it’s all over?”   
  
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” It was more cryptic than she wanted, but she supposed it was the best answer she would get right now. Glynda fiddled absently with the ring at her finger, still weighing her options. There weren’t many of them.  
  
Oh, but Monarch had her. He could practically taste it on his tongue. Using the tension to his advantage he closed the last few feet between them, so close now he swore he could smell something delicately floral on her, so close he could feel the heat off her skin. Slowly she raised her left hand and pressed it against his chest where his heart beat low and steady in its cage. The corner of his lip curled into what he hoped passed as a smile, fangs gleaming.   
  
She did not pull away when his hand covered hers. A fizzle of blue light spread across his knuckles, and when it disappeared a band set with a small purple stone was around his finger. Her eyes dropped to it a moment, matching it with her own. She nodded slowly.  
  
“For better or worse,” she murmured, eyes closing as Monarch leaned his bloody forehead against hers. The liquid slicking his skin felt sticky and hot on hers and that terrifyingly familiar burn in her veins started a heartbeat’s length later. She let it take her. This time it did not consume, did not engulf; she could feel the power thrumming through her core, feel _him_ white-hot in her veins, but darkness did not come as it had the first time she had fallen.  
  
Seconds, minutes, maybe hours passed between them. Footsteps sounded in the distance, hushed voices carried softly in the ever-night. When Glynda opened her eyes she could feel the fangs in her mouth, the horns curving from her skull, the feral rage in her heart. No sadness resided here. Monarch looked up from her in time for the group of students to stumble through the broken doorway, her hand still held to his chest. His mouth spread into a toothy sneer, his free hand settling comfortably at the curve of her hip like it had always belonged there. She bristled, feeling Monarch’s influence in her blood, the siren’s song of violence singing through her veins. Or was she imagining that? The corner of her mouth curled into a snarl. It was time.   
  
Monarch’s voice was a low rumble in her ear when he leaned in to whisper to her.  
  
“ _Long live the Queen_.”

 

 


End file.
